13th - 21st October - Cuzco, Lake Titicaca, Arequipa, Colca Canyon, Chile

Well, this morning finds us in Arica, Chile...overnight bus and train from Arequipa got us here. We are both quite bleary eyed at this point. The guidebook said that the train was charming. By that, I think they meant rickety and ramshackle! We reckon you are all now quite bored of our renditions of 'this place amazing blah blah that place beautiful blah blah'! So, perhaps we should tell you that we haven't showered for more than four days and that Chris has a great case of scratchy stubble...I would show pictures but can't seem to find a place that will allow us to upload photos on the blog at the moment. Over the past week we have become backpackers...lugging our packs on and off buses as we have made our way across southern Peru and into Chile. The highlight has probably been staying with a local family on the island of Taquile on Lake Titicaca.

9th-12th October: Trekking to Machu Picchu

One of the main reasons for coming to Peru was to make the epic trek to Machu Picchu. We have just returned from the four day adventure and it was indeed epic. We arrived in Cuzco a couple of days before the trek to acclimatise to the altitude (3400m)...but were still sufffering from altitude sickness when we set off despite drinking copious amounts of the local brew - coca tea - which helps with the headaches, shortness of breath etc. This coupled with pouring rain made the first day of hiking uphill pretty hard work. After 7 hours of walking we camped the night and were relieved to find that our sleeping bags were still dry! Day two dawned brighter with no rain and little enough cloud that we had our first views of the majestic mountain ranges surrounding us. That put all 17 of our trekking party in a much better frame of mind. Our trail took us through isolated mountain communities (some over 4200m) where people still live as they have for many hundreds of years in single room mud houses with thatched roofs with nothing like running water, electricity or bathrooms. The men farm the hillsides where only small potatoes will grow and keep llama and alpaca (I still can't exactly tell the difference after seeing hundreds of the creatures over the past few days). We were greeted along that path by lots of children all excited to see us - mostly because they were hoping for a sweet or pencils or some small gift that we had brought to thank them for allowing us to walk through their world. It was quite incredible how simply these people live and with such dignity. This second day was the hardest physically as we climbed over two mountain passes, one of 4200m and the other 4500m. Chris and I were both still feeling the effects of the altitude and were extremely glad to finally puff and blow our way over the second pass. It was a great sense of achievement to arrive at the camp at the end of that day. We awoke on the third day to clear blue skies, frost and a beautiful rising sun, to views of snow-capped mountains and herds of alpaca/llama around us. The sun warmed the air so quickly that we were able to eat breakfast outside (one of Chris' favourite things to do) before setting off for the last full day of hiking - now all downhill into the sacred valley of the Incas. On day four we awoke at 430am to get to Machu Picchu before sunrise. It is indeed a mysterious place, set high among mountains with precipitous drops on all sides, it was completely shrouded in cloud and mist when we arrived. Throughout the first few hours this mist would lift and clear to reveal the ancient city then settle again. I can definitely understand why the Incas decided to build this city among these mountains in order to be closer to heaven.

One of the themes of this trip for me (K) has definitely been to face up to my fear of heights. Getting to and from Machu Picchu involves an extremely steep journey which we did by bus with me praying the whole way that the brakes would hold and that the bus would not fall off the cliff! And once again there was the opportunity to climb up a steep mountain to get an incredible view down over the ruins. The top of the mountain was reached by a trail of steep steps with drops on all sides. Chris and various of the gang were very keen to do the climb but I was trying to avoid it all morning...having had a tearful panic when Chris tried to get me to stand beside him for a photo ever so close to the edge of a many thousand foot drop! The dizziness I had been feeling cleared a little so I decided to attempt the climb since I figured that even if I only got half way I would still have an amazing view. The climb was so physical that my pounding heart and watching where I was putting my feet consumed my concentration sufficiently that I managed to get to the top. Again, it was worth it for the magnificent view now bathed in sunlight. Perhaps I am another step closer to not being so petrified of heights?!

Central and Southern California: 30th September - 5th October

We bid a fond farewell to Yosemite and hit the road again. This time we were headed to San Francisco to see Tom and Elaine Bible (friend from hOME in Oxford) and the folk at Church of the Sojourners. We made a little detour via Sonoma Valley and a couple of family run vineyards where we sampled some of their finest vintage then camped on the Marin headlands across the bay from SF. We had a really great time learning about Reimagine! and 7 which is the new monastic community that Tom and Elaine are a part of. We are also really grateful to Tim Otto and Edith Bernard from Church of the Sojourners who made us tea while graciously and thoughtfully answering all of our questions. I have been particularly intrigued by the fact that both CoSK and Sojourners (communities more than 20 years old) started off with quite activitist intentions and over the years have decided it is more important to live as the Body of Christ together. This has definitely got me thinking as I guess I have perhaps placed more importance on the idea of community as safe space for welcoming the outcast than as a place of discipleship for me. However, my views are being reviewed which is the whole point, right?

Tom and Elaine kindly hosted us and took us to dinner at a great Turkish place and then we headed on down the Magnificent Big Sur. We had another great night camping on the coast (our 11th) and enjoying drinking wine and playing cards under the stars while the surf crashed up on the beach. For the record Chris was soundly beaten at a game that Rich and Sarah Body taught us!!!

Our last couple of days in California were spent with Melanie, Julio and Samaya in the heart of downtown Los Angeles. It was fab to see them and hang out in their Latino neighbourhood. We even managed to eat Sushi which made me very happy indeed. Melanie took us to Venice beach where all sorts of weird and wonderful people are on show. Many thanks to the Avilas for a great weekend.

And now for Peru!!

Yosemite: 25-29 September

Having arrived the previous night in pitch blackness, what an amazing sight greeted us the next morning when we popped our heads out of the tent – Yosemite! In all its glory. I´ve used a little bit of poetic license here, because actually what we saw first thing was lots of other tents and assorted pine trees, but after that, once we had washed (and by now we had got into the habit of being pretty sharpish on the ablutions front) and walked away from the actual campsite, we found outselves in the basin of a beautiful green valley with incredibly high and sheer granite mountain peaks towering above us. Having been in America for some time, we know that one of their main "wow" words is "awesome", but I have to say that Yosemite is indeed truly awe inspiring.

After getting our bearings around the village and a very leisurely breakfast, it was time to head for the hills - Glacier point, in fact, which needed a bit of oomph for us to climb. The sun shone, the air was clear and it was a really great 9+ mile walk, with spectacular views of many of the surrounding mountains and valleys, as well as the odd bird of prey and various types of vegetation. Just before sunset when we were still in the wilderness we saw a bear which was a wonderful sight.

After the previous day´s exertions we decided to do the bottom of the valley walk, which in the end was about 13 miles altogether and we got back just before it got dark, as we had done the previous evening.

Yosemite is very well organised and has accommodation and eating places for the shoestring budget campers right through to those who like to holiday in style. It even has shuttle buses that ferry you to the various places. We had booked originally for two nights (we had to move our tent to a different site after the first night because we had not booked in time to get two consecutive nights on the same site) and thought that we might camp away from the valley the next night, but the other sites are so far away (45-60 minutes) that we really wanted to stay in the valley for a third night, and having fallen in love with the place, for a fourth too if possible. Word around the site was that if you got up early and queued at the reservation desk it might be possible to get a cancellation. So around 630am I joined a handful of others hopefully waiting for the office to open at 8am. Jackpot! We were able to get the same site for the next two nights.

Ok, now it´s time for Katharine to take over the story! Ever since arriving in Yosemite Chris had been enthused about climbing Half Dome. This is the ultimate Yosemite day hike to the park's spiritual centrepiece. 16+ miles and accompanying descriptions of 'extremely strenuous, not for the faint-hearted, best attempted over two days etc etc'. All of these had put the wind up me anyway, but this vertigo sufferer was most put off by the idea of the last 900ft to the crest which are scaled by pulling oneself up cables because the granite is to steep and smooth to be attempted otherwise. Well, the first two days of hikes had been so beautiful and worth all the effort we decided to give it a shot. I decided I need to conquer the fear and trust God! We set off at 6am while it was still dark so that we had a full 13 hours of daylight to get there and back. It was a fabulous day. It did take all our energy and all our courage to get up and back...we could hardly walk for the next week...but it was definitely worth it. I was so tired and glad when we had done the scariest bit I sat down and cried with relief! Hopefully we will be able to post some photos soon. The views from the top were immense but the most significant thing I did was to pop Chris' blisters so that he could make it down again!!! We are never ones to turn down a beer but we were so tired that night it was all we could do to eat something and roll into the tent. We didn't manage to toast our achievement for several days!

Road Trip! or: Maps - it's a matter or scale

Having woken up in Eureka, California, breakfasted and got ourselves back on the road, we set off for Yosemite just before 9am. Having saved money (about $5) by not buying a map of the USA and surviving on our Lonely Planet book maps, we were expecting to arrive in the National Park some time after lunch. Well, we did arrive after lunch - by now we had worked out that you can buy a foot long subway sandwich for $5, which does for two people so that has been our lunch on many a day. We actually also managed to arrive after supper (if we'd stopped to have any) and all we can say is it's a good job we were well versed in pitching our tent by now, because we had to put it up in the dark this time - at 10pm!

A more positive spin on this mother of all road trips day, is that we passed through so much varied countryside and listened to U2 on the CD player which was a big part of our original vision for the trip. And so our whole idea of travelling through America was encapsulated into one long but glorious day.

Oregon Coast and Redwoods

After Crater Lake we headed west to the Oregon coast and then South through the coastal redwoods in Northern California...we have been continually amazed by the beauty and grandeur we have encountered...so much so that instead of blah blahing ad infinitum we'll let the photos speak for themselves...

At the recommendation of both guide book and Suzie (CosK) we headed off to Crater Lake, a beautifully blue lake created by a collapsing volcano high in the mountains south east of Eugene. We arrived in the evening and spent the night at a campground at a campsite a few miles away from the crater itself - our coldest night so far by far, mainly due to the altitude - we both slept fully clothed. But also the night when we saw by far the most stars - quite breathtaking, we were no where near any lights and so the Milky Way looked at its mysterious best.

In the morning we drove around the crater stopping at various view points before making our descent on foot to the Lake itself. It really was the most incredible blue and worth the 1500 foot climb back to the rim afterwards.